I seem to be doing a lot of apologising at the moment - with regards to the servers, we have been experiencing record amounts of traffic in the last month (probably owing to the rather exciting start to the F1 season). We are aware of the situation, and the need to upgrade the whole forum system (from functionality through to hosting etc).

We only have a small dev team but it is on the roadmap of jobs to fix; though I can't give you a solid ETA for the fix being implemented at this time.

Please bear with us, I know it's frustrating at times and I thank you all for your patience and support, we will get it sorted as soon as we can.

Heh, you need to work in IT, convincing management to spend money on upgrading equipment that's not physically falling apart is virtually impossible. Unless a director can't get his email of course. Woe betide you if you don't get new servers in by the end of the day.

Heh, you need to work in IT, convincing management to spend money on upgrading equipment that's not physically falling apart is virtually impossible. Unless a director can't get his email of course. Woe betide you if you don't get new servers in by the end of the day.

You can use Amazon S3 so you don't need expensive servers for those 3 hours every 2 weeks it is very busy. I suggest you look into that.

It is really the only thing holding me back of using Autosport Pro. So from a commercial perspective it is also very strange.

Well if they don't wanna listen now, there is only one option: sabotage the mail of the Autosport CEO

Seriously absolutely atrocious, how you can justify this happening I don't know.

I'm sure the lack of any action is in part down to the fact that this is probably the best open global F1 forum in the world, and there aren't any real serious alternatives, but you would be extremely foolish to rest on your laurels. History has shown that particularly when something better comes along, loyalty only lasts so long and then people migrate. It also doesn't help that your losing so much good will. This is becoming nigh on unacceptable and while I love this forum and have invested a lot into it I'm seriously beginning to think about looking for other alternatives unless this problem is fixed. Sure I'm just one poster and probably one not universally liked, but I assure you, I'm the snowball that proceeds the avalanche.

Come on guys, this really isn't good enough. I know funds are tight, but if you need a new server (and you do) you could always open up to contributions, I'm sure many people around here would be willing to chip in

Come on guys, this really isn't good enough. I know funds are tight, but if you need a new server (and you do) you could always open up to contributions, I'm sure many people around here would be willing to chip in

I don't really like to complain but honestly, this forum has become unusable. F1 fans should be able to discuss a race after it has finished, not a week later. Please sort it out!

Maybe they should limit the access to the forum to registered members after the race, for 4 or 5 hours to cut some traffic.

Good one but it wouldn't work.

People would register and that would only take up more query's to the database (a registered member does more query's than a non-registered member).

If they have the forum optimized (gzip, php cache, mysql cache) then the only thing left is to add a new server just for MySQL.

That's 200~ €/month. I'm sure they can afford that. And if they don't, I'm sure a hosting company would sponsor them if they put a banner like "Powered by X servers"

My honest opinion is that they don't care too much about it being down sometimes as it works most of time, but for us, fans, it crashes in the most critical moments, after X happened, after races... and that's just unacceptable.

People would register and that would only take up more query's to the database (a registered member does more query's than a non-registered member).

If they have the forum optimized (gzip, php cache, mysql cache) then the only thing left is to add a new server just for MySQL.

That's 200~ €/month. I'm sure they can afford that. And if they don't, I'm sure a hosting company would sponsor them if they put a banner like "Powered by X servers"

My honest opinion is that they don't care too much about it being down sometimes as it works most of time, but for us, fans, it crashes in the most critical moments, after X happened, after races... and that's just unacceptable.

I run a MySQL server and an http server from Softlayer. It not difficult to set up in anyway shape or form and it isn't at all expensive, for a company such as Autosport.

Autosport do not care about the forum. I read my news at Autosport because I use the forum here. If I use another forum I'll read news elsewhere too. I'm sure the same goes for others. They really should care about the uptime of the forum.

I run a MySQL server and an http server from Softlayer. It not difficult to set up in anyway shape or form and it isn't at all expensive, for a company such as Autosport.

Autosport do not care about the forum. I read my news at Autosport because I use the forum here. If I use another forum I'll read news elsewhere too. I'm sure the same goes for others. They really should care about the uptime of the forum.

They should but they won't. Today was horrible, even before qualifying began.